


The Difference Between Living and Surviving

by Sarah_Ellie



Series: Infected!verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post Season 6, Wincest - Freeform, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_Ellie/pseuds/Sarah_Ellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not long after Death puts up Sam's wall, a viral pandemic creates scores of walking Infected. The Winchesters are left alone to deal with the catastrophe while the aftermath of Sam's soullessness begins to alter their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place after Sam gets his soul back but before most of the major plot in Season 7. There still may be spoilers though.
> 
> Please leave comments when you get a chance, I'm really eager for some feedback!

“It should be the next right hand turn.” Sam muttered, trying to fold away the map of New York State, whose width threatened to consume the entire front seat of the car. He had tried to convince Dean to get a GPS for awhile now, but Dean only ever scoffed at the suggestion, muttering under his breath about “sissy shit.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first three times.” Dean said, keeping one hand on the steering wheel of the Impala while he had the other propped on the frame of the side window, which was rolled all of the way down. 

A warm breeze wafted around the car, mingling with the scent of leather and greasy take out. The road reached a T-intersection up ahead, and Dean flicked on the blinker and turned in accordance with Sam’s directions. 

“No offense Sammy, but driving with you is like driving with a blue-haired old lady.”

“You’re the one who wanted to head all the way out here to go after a Wendigo.“ Sam said. “We could have just called one of the three hunters already up this way.” 

Sam was finally able to compress the map into a rectangle small enough to fit in the glove box next to the tin of fake IDs and a pistol. 

“Yeah, well, I was getting bored out in the desert. Everything tastes like sand and none of the motels have cable.” Dean said. Sam couldn’t argue his brother’s logic.   
“Whatever. Just stay on this road until you see signs for Saranac. The sightings were a few miles from there.”

They drove down a tiny two-lane highway called Old Military Road and a few minutes after another left hand turn they pulled into the tiny town of Saranac. They stopped at a convenience store for some food and then wandered their way into the gravel parking lot of the Lakeview Inn, a run-down motel that was probably supposed to look like a log cabin, but it was hard to tell in its current state of disrepair. 

Inside the motel office Dean pulled an American Express card from his worn leather wallet and handed it to the teenage girl behind the counter. She cracked her gum while she ran a bright green fingernail down the guest ledger. 

“King or two queens?” She asked, and her eyes lingered on Sam for a moment before they returned to Dean. Sam shifted uncomfortably; he knew what that glance implied. 

A few minutes later Sam and Dean were lingering around the back of the Impala, pulling out their duffle bags. Sam grabbed the key from Dean and went over to room 7 while Dean lifted the floor of the trunk to check the stores of supplies underneath. The sun was starting to set already, and it was pretty clear to them both that they wouldn’t be able to start investigating until the next day. Locals were much less willing to talk to strangers after dark, especially when it was about something out of the ordinary. 

“Hey man, are you feeling pizza or Chinese?” Sam asked when Dean walked into the motel room. 

The door swung shut heavily behind him. The room was small, with wood-paneling on the walls and a tiny TV on top of a dresser. Sam watched as Dean walked to the opposite side of the room where there was a small wooden table and two chairs next to the bathroom. He dumped his bag on the floor and unzipped his fly as he wandered over to the toilet. He did not shut the door behind him. Sam rolled his eyes from where he was laying, sprawled out on a scratchy comforter with an ugly pattern.

“Which one’s closest to the liquor store?” Dean called from the bathroom. 

Sam shook his head, deciding that telling his brother for the millionth time that he didn’t want to make dinner plans while one of them had his pants around his ankles wouldn’t make any difference. Instead, he just leaned back on the pillow he had claimed as his own and waited for Dean to saunter back out into the room. 

“It’s New York, dude. You can buy beer in a supermarket.” Sam reminded Dean when he had come back and threw himself on the bed next to Sam. 

Sam squirmed aside to make room for his brother, who was sweaty from standing outside. The cotton of Dean’s t-shirt clung to his spine from the moisture. Sam stared at the way it revealed the muscles in Dean’s shoulders. Sam pressed his teeth down on his tongue to keep from saying anything. 

“Dean, it’s too hot for this shit, go and lay on your own bed.” Sam gestured to the other identical queen-sized bed just three feet away. Dean looked up from the pillow and batted his dark eyelashes at Sam.

“But Sammy, that’s just so far away.” Dean smirked. 

“Then go and get your beer.” Sam said, his voice coming out in an exasperated sigh. 

“Now that I can do. No distance is too far for beer!” Dean said, painting an entirely fake but nonetheless convincing look of solemnity on his face. Sam glanced at the tension in his brother’s lips, and then looked away. 

“Whatever. Just bring back food, too.” Sam said, trying not to look too closely at his brother when Dean pulled himself off of the bed.

Dean’s shirt was hiked up over his stomach, revealing his prominent hipbones. To make things worse, Dean reached high over his head to stretch before he walked away, revealing even more of his freckled skin. Sam felt as if a large stone had dropped into his stomach. 

Dean patted his pockets until he was sure that he had his wallet, grabbed his keys, and headed out the door. Sam watched him go, feeling unsettled and somehow rejected as he sat alone in the room with two beds.   
___

Dean woke up in the motel, a beer bottle by his bedside and a small headache. He rolled over and felt his chest seize up when he saw that Sam wasn’t in the other bed. 

“Sammy?” He called, sitting up. There was no answer. Dean sprung from the bed and ran over to the bathroom, feeling his stomach drop when he found it empty. Immediately, Dean pulled a gun from under his pillow and took a look around the room. Almost instantly, Dean relaxed.

Sam’s shoes were gone, and so was his wallet and the keys to the Impala, but Sam’s duffle, zipped and placed neatly in the corner (next to Dean’s unzipped and overflowing bag) was still there. 

He just ran out to get something. Dean thought to himself as he put the gun on the bedside table and ran his hands through his hair. He’ll be back. 

The bed squeaked in protest when Dean sank down on its edge. Ever since Sam had gotten his soul back (and Death had put up the wall), Dean kept expecting Sam to take off. After all, being around Dean was like tracing your fingers over an itch that couldn’t be scratched. It just made sense that Sam would rather break off, go and live a life that didn’t threaten impending insanity, than stay with Dean and risk losing everything. Again. 

That’s why Dean had suggested taking a bit of a break from the whole Purgatory deal. With Castiel gone, Crowley mid-disappearing act, and Sam being held together by a wall created by Death, it just seemed like a good time to split. Dean didn’t even have to mention the guilt he felt, knowing that Sam’s precarious state was as good as his fault. 

Dean took out his cell phone with half of a mind to call Sam, or at the very least send him a text to see where he was. But just then, a scraping sound came from the door of the motel room. Seconds later Sam stepped through, holding a carry-out tray with two coffees and a brown bag. 

“Got breakfast.” Sam said, mumbling around the car keys dangling from his lips. He gestured to the food after he put it down on the table. Dean wandered over at the promising smell of coffee, only pausing long enough to pull on a pair of jeans over the boxers that he had slept in. 

Dean didn’t mention how panicked he had been mere minutes before Sam’s reappearance. Sam didn’t mention the ivory-handled gun’s newest home on the bedside table (maybe he hadn’t noticed?) or Dean’s usual complaint whenever Sam brought bagels and not something with legitimate breakfast meats. They were relatively silent for a little while until they began to plan their investigation. They had the FBI suits all ready, the address of the local ranger’s station, and the names of the next of kin of the hikers that had disappeared. The Winchesters decided to split up so that they could cover more ground. Dean went to go talk to the victims’ families, and Sam took the Impala up the road to talk to the Rangers. 

Hours later, Dean watched as Sammy studied the hiking map that they had picked up at one of the local convenience stores. Three red circles showed where Dean had noted the disappearances of hikers. They were all from the same half-mile area. Sam pulled out a pen from his pocket and made another circle, tracing the ink thickly onto the map. 

“Okay, so clearly the Wendigo is holed up somewhere in here.” Sam said, tracing a wide arc across the map with his fingertip.

Dean watched his younger brother’s hands as they traced elevation lines and trails before Sam pulled his hands off of the table. Dean glanced up, initially worried that Sam had seen something in Dean’s eyes that made him move. But instead, Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out a second map, which he laid out next to the other. 

They were sitting outside at a picnic table overlooking a lake. Dean had a burger half-unwrapped in his hands and Sam had picked his wrap back up to take a bite. 

“What’s that?” Dean asked, looking down at the very amateur-looking map lay out on the table. It had no grids or elevations, only drawings of buildings that popped up over a very large area. 

“Historical map, I saw it in one of those books about local history.” Sam answered. “In the fifties, there was a hunting lodge not too far from where these disappearances are taking place.”

“So what, the damn thing is holed up in the old lodge?” Dean asked 

“In what’s left of it, at least.” Sam shrugged. “But he won’t be there too much longer. The Rangers closed the nearest trail that runs past the lodge yesterday, which means that our Wendigo is going to move on.”

“Soon, too.” Dean said, watching Sam take another bite of his wrap. There was a dot of mayo on Sam’s lower lip, and Dean had to fight the urge to reach over and wipe it off. 

“The last report of a disappearance was three days ago, according to the Rangers at the station, so odds are good that the creature will be out hunting tonight.” Sam concluded. “I say we head out there and gank the son of a bitch before he moves on and kills more people.”

Dean nodded and stood up. 

“Looks like we’re going hiking, then.” He said.


	2. Chapter Two

“This isn’t a great time, Bobby.” Sam’s cell phone was cradled between his ear and his shoulder. His other arm was wrapped around Dean, who was slick with blood and minutes from passing out. Sam had had a hell of a time getting him out of the woods and into the back of the Impala, and now getting him to the motel room was proving to be equally difficult.

“Never is, boy. But I’m going to need you to listen up all the same.” Bobby said gruffly just as Sam found the key to the room and struggled between his attempt juggle the phone, unlocking the door, and supporting Dean’s weight at the same time. Sam took in a sharp breath as he bumped his hand on the frame of the door- right on a new, glistening burn that covered most of the back of his right hand. 

“What’s going on, Bobby?” Sam asked as he half-carried and half-dragged Dean into the room. He shut the motel door with the heel of his sneaker and lowered Dean onto the bed. There was a deep gash running across Dean’s forehead, and another on his left arm. Blood had soaked through his shirt, which meant there was probably another wound on his chest. 

“Some hunters took a job in Paterson, New Jersey. It’s right outside New York city. It’s like the Detroit of the East Coast. They went out there a week ago, and no one has heard hide or hair of ‘em since.”

“What were they hunting?” Sam asked as he went into the bathroom to begin soaking towels. When the hot water made contact with his burn, Sam had to choke down a groan of pain. 

Despite the white-hot burning of his hand, Sam continued to soak towels and occasionally popping his head it into the motel room to check on Dean. He was tempted to tell Bobby how cut up Dean was, but something made him hold back. After all, Sam had been taking care of Dean as best as he could since Dad had died, and except for the year and a half Sam had lost to soullessness, he figured he had done a better job than most. Besides, Sam had a lot to make up for, now that he was back and cognizant. Sam could handle this just fine.

“No idea. Something nasty, though. This wasn’t their first rodeo, so to speak. Maybe you boys ought to go and check it out, make sure everything is okay.”

“Sure Bobby.” Sam said as he filled an empty ice bucket with the warm, soaking towels. “Just let us wrap up here and we’ll head over.”

“Well hurry up, idjits. Something about this ain’t right, and we can’t afford to be losing any more hunters.” Bobby hung up. Sam snapped his phone shut and left it on the bathroom counter. 

Dean was only semi-conscious by now, propped up on his good arm and trying to inspect the damage. Blood from his head wound oozed into his eyes and down his cheeks, and his hands were covered from trying to swipe the blood away. 

“Dean, lay back.” Sam told him, pushing gently on his shoulder. Dean fought him, trying to stand. Sam was desperate to clean up his brother. The wound on his arm would need stitches, and he had no idea what to expect from whatever had happened under Dean’s shirt.

As Dean moved to sit up again, fresh blood began to ooze from his forehead. 

“You need to stop moving, man. You’re making this worse.” Sam tried again to push Dean down. 

“Hurts, Sammy.” Dean slurred. “Need some Jack.”

Sam sighed. “Whiskey isn’t a pain killer, Dean.” He said, and then had an idea. “Lay down for a sec, I’ll take care of it.” 

On the inner pocket of Sam’s duffle bag was a small bottle of Tylenol PM gels. Sam had been using them for nights when he laid awake, trying desperately not to pick at Death’s wall. The tiny opaque pills would knock Dean out in a matter of minutes. 

Sam pressed the pills into Dean’s hand and gave him a beer from the mini fridge (Sam’s hand hesitated by the bottle of Jack Daniels, but decided against it). Before Sam handed the bottle to his brother he flicked the cap off with a lighter. Dean took the pills, and downed the beer quickly. 

Once Dean was asleep Sam laid the bin of towels on the bed next to his brother and set to work gently wiping the blood off of his forehead, his freckled cheeks, and away from his eyes. The cut extended from just above Dean’s nose straight to the edge of his right eyebrow, and an ugly bruise had started to form just above the cut. It didn’t look too deep, but Sam was more worried about the blood soaking through his brother’s shirt than the seemingly shallow (well, shallower) cut on his forehead. The cut running from the inside of Dean’s bicep down to his elbow was shallow as well, so Sam decided to leave that wound for later. When Sam turned his attention to his brother’s chest, his stomach dropped. Blood had soaked almost the entirety of the front of the shirt and onto the bed covers.

Gingerly, Sam lifted the fabric upwards to peek at the skin beneath. It wasn’t until Sam was staring at the wound in full light that he realized there were three tears running across Dean’s chest. The black shirt was so wet with blood that the fabric clung to his chest, hiding the rips. 

There was no way for Sam to lift the shirt over his brother’s head. Not with gashes across his torso, arms, and face. Instead, he pulled out his favorite pocketknife- a gift from Dean when they were teenagers- and flicked it open. Carefully, Sam pulled the fabric away from Dean’s chest and began to slice it open from waist to collar, and then down each sleeve. 

Even with the addition of gore, Sam had to admit that Dean’s body was gorgeous. If he hadn’t been too worried about blood loss and infection, Sam may have paused to watch his brother’s chest rise and fall, purely cherishing the realization that Dean was still with Sam, even after everything that had happened. 

But the fact of the matter was that Dean’s breaths were happening quickly, and they were far too shallow. Sam set to work with the towels, stopping only to rinse them off in the bathroom sink. The white porcelain was thoroughly stained with blood by the time Sam had finished. Then he had to wipe down the shallow cuts with peroxide- or maybe alcohol? Sam wasn’t sure which one would be better. Dean was the one with the more comprehensive first aid knowledge. Sam had mostly just learned what Dean had told him. 

One thing that Sam did know how to do was stitches. This was lucky, because of the three parallel gashes running down Dean’s torso, the cut in the center was deep. Sam laid a hand on his brother’s right pectoral while he worked, comforted by the warmth beneath his fingers. Dean only stirred slightly when Sam touched him with the sewing needle. It took him longer than it should have, because Sam’s hand was shaking from his burn.

By the end of the hour, Sam had finished stitching his brother up and was gently lifting him over to Sam’s bed, which was both dry and absent of blood. After a moment’s hesitation, Sam unbuttoned his brother’s jeans and unzipped the fly, but couldn’t bring himself to do any more than that. Then he went into the bathroom, picked up the bucket of towels, and washed the blood from them before filling the bucket back up with water. Sam went out to the Impala and began to wipe down the back seat, washing away Dean’s blood from the leather and scrubbing clean the car that Dean loved almost as much as he had loved any person. When he was done Sam dumped the bucket onto the gravel and went inside to wash the towels again.

The large bloodstain on the empty bed was scarier now than when Dean had been on it- it was as if Sam was seeing it for the first time. It didn’t get any less terrifying when Sam looked over at his brother, who was pale and clammy in the other bed. Sam dumped the towels in the sink with half of a bottle of hotel soap, scrubbed them as clean as he could, and hung them up to dry on the shower rail. Then he went back into the room and looked between the two beds. The stain was dark, heavy, and it carried all of the potential of the terrible things that could happen to Dean if Sam couldn’t take care of him. That thought weighed heavy on Sam, and after a moment’s hesitation, Sam crawled into the bed next to his brother, but only after taking the pillows from the other bed and laying them out between them. 

Sam fell asleep listening to his brother’s breaths, far more concerned about Dean than about the hunters in New Jersey. He didn’t realize that Bobby’s phone call would change absolutely everything.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean knew when he opened his eyes that he had slept in way too late. The sun’s angles in the room were all wrong and the air felt too stuffy to be early in the morning. He went to sit up and immediately fell back onto his pillow as the room began to spin.

“Hey man, take it easy.” 

The sound of Sam’s voice, even amid the tone of concern, was instantly calming to Dean. He wasn’t alone and incapacitated, there was someone looking out for him. The mental checklist of possible escapes and secondary plans eased away. 

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi.” Dean groaned. His eyes were pressed tightly closed, and his entire chest and left arm felt heavy and painful. 

“Nah, just a Wendigo. He got you pretty good.” Sam said. “But at least you got him one better.”

Dean heard Sam make his way over to the bedside and set something down on the table next to him. Next came a crackling sound. Dean opened one eye and watched Sam loosen an ice pack. 

“Picked it up this morning.” Sam said before Dean had a chance to ask. Sam gestured to his own forehead, and so Dean placed the pack on his own. The cold made his growing headache pound even heavier. 

Dean used his left arm to prop himself up a bit and lean against the headboard. He picked up the glass of water and gulped it down. Sam reached for the glass once it was empty. Something was odd about the gesture, though. Then Dean saw that there were beige bandages wrapped around Sam’s right hand. 

“What happened, Sammy?” Dean asked as Sam took the glass and walked over to the bathroom to refill it. 

“You’ve got some cuts and bruises on your chest-“ Sam started when he came back to the bedside. 

“Not to me, to you.” Dean said, lunging forward (shit, would the room ever stop spinning?) and grabbed Sam by the wrist. His brother winced, but sat down on the bed next to Dean as he carefully unwrapped the bandages, revealing a large, blistering burn on the back of Sam’s hand.

“This is a second-degree burn.” Dean said, putting aside the bandages. “Did you run it under cool water?”

“I ran it under water, yeah.” Sam said, but he didn’t meet Dean’s eyes. With his good hand, he passed the glass of water to Dean, who ignored it. After a few seconds Sam put it on the nightstand. 

“You need to go to the hospital.” Dean said, readying himself to stand. The floor pitched beneath him and he stumbled. “There are insurance cards in the glove compartment. We can head to the nearest ER.” 

Dean felt his brother grab him by the shoulders and lower him back down onto the bed.

“I took care of it.” Sam said, though Dean didn’t believe him. After a few more minutes of insistent arguing, Dean settled for Sam allowing him to re-wrap the wound with new dressings, only under the condition that Dean didn’t move from the bed to do it. 

After another hour, Dean began to notice tiny pinpricks of pain latticed down the length of his chest. He looked and realized that while most of the blood he dimly remembered from the night before had been wiped away from his torso, he was still lying in a thin penumbra of gore. 

“Sammy, I need to shower.” Dean said. He hated how weak his voice sounded, tired and defeated. Once again, Dean leaned forward to get off of the bed, only to be stopped by Sam’s left hand. 

“You lost a lot of blood last night, Dean. If you go too fast you’ll be sick.”

“Man, I’m covered in ick and I need to pee.” Dean protested. But he had to fight to keep a harsh tone in his voice. The touch of Sam’s hand on his bare chest had caused a tiny shock to zap through his body. Dean tried to quell the reaction, pretend that it hadn’t happened. 

“Then you’re going to have to let me help you.” Sam said after a moment’s hesitation. Before Dean could retort Sam interjected- “And no, I don’t just need to get laid and am settling for you. The last thing I need is for you to knock yourself out in the shower and then have to explain to an ER nurse how you managed to end up with claw scratches, anemia, and a concussion.”

“Well Sammy, you sure know how to charm a guy.” Dean muttered. He thought he heard Sam chuckle as he helped Dean onto his feet. It was true, Dean was having a thoroughly difficult time standing, and the sudden vertical nature of his body had caused his stomach to clench horrifically. 

The bathroom was too small for the Winchesters to do anything but stand in the bathtub together. Dean grasped the handrail that seemed to come equipped in every motel bathroom and turned his back to the shower spray, which was just on the hotter side of lukewarm. 

After a few awkward grumbles, Dean and Sam had decided to strip down. They each left on their boxer-briefs and kept their eyes trained above the waist. Sam stood in front of Dean, grasping his uninjured arm. With Dean’s gashes limiting the places that Sam could hold Dean steady, he settled his hand on Dean’s waist, ready to steady his brother if he lost his balance. Dean could feel Sam shivering from the coolness of the water (lukewarm was not either of their preferred temperatures) and his position so far away from the water. Dean tried not to think about Sammy’s hand on his hip, the tension in his muscles as he tried to hold back his body’s reaction to the cold, or the fact that Sam had to stand so close to Dean to support him that his head loomed just over Dean’s shoulder. With the slightest inclination of Dean’s head, he could rest it on Sam’s shoulder if he wanted. 

What gore the water didn’t wash away, Dean tried to wipe away with one of the only washcloths remaining. Sam had to help him with everything except for his left arm and shoulder. They were silent as Sam soaked the washcloth under the spray of water and gently rubbed around Dean’s stitches, down his legs, and across his back. It only took about seven minutes for it to become too difficult for Dean to stand, and he found himself leaning into Sam despite his white-knuckled grasp on the handrail.

“We are never talking about this.” Dean muttered as he dipped his head back into the shower spray, trying to quell the nausea that was swelling inside of him. Sam reached forward to turn the nozzle off. They then began the arduous process of getting two wet bodies out of the porcelain tub when one of them could barely stand and the other was fighting exhaustion. Dean had to rely on his brother completely by the time they got back out into the main room- his good arm slung around Sam’s shoulders as his brother crouched low to support him. Sam brought Dean over to one of the wooden chairs, and affixed Dean’s grasp to the back of it. After some rummaging through the towels from the night before, Sam found dry towel and brought it out. Dean barely made it to the bed (soaked boxer-briefs thankfully off after a minute of effort, towel on) and lay back down. Getting dressed would have to wait. 

Dean felt like hell. Sure, he was cleaner now, but his arm hurt and his chest stung and there was a throbbing in his head that made him suspect that his brain was trying to burrow its way out. And of course, there was the nausea, rolling over him in hot waves. 

Sam tossed a pair of dry boxer-briefs to Dean and a clean t-shirt. Dean took a deep breath and struggled to pull the dry clothes on while Sam ordered take-out facing away from Dean. The effort exhausted him, and he collapsed back onto the bed long after Sam had hung up his cell phone. When Sam walked back over to Dean, there was a glass of water in his hands. 

“You need to drink.” Sam said, pressing the cool glass into Dean’s hands. 

“Sammy.” Was all Dean muttered. He was asleep a moment later.

Harsh knocking on the motel room door woke Dean up a little while later. He tried to sit up, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he settled back down and watched his brother instead. There was something that Sam wasn’t telling him. Dean could sense it in the way his fingers flicked together nervously and how often Sam was checking the time on his phone, on the alarm clock, and on his watch.

The food was unwrapped and Sam brought Dean a burger and a new glass of water before going over to the table and opening his laptop. Sam dug into his salad with fervor, trying to stave off the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him. Every moment he slept was time that he was not taking care of Dean, and Sam couldn’t allow that. After an hour Sam looked over at Dean.

“You’re not eating.” He said. 

“I ate plenty.” Dean lied. 

“At least drink your water.” Sam insisted, standing up and walking over to the bed. 

“If I drink then I’m going to have to pee.” Dean said pointedly. Sam’s mouth tightened, but he looked away.  
“You’ve got to drink.” Sam finally said, but all he did was push the glass closer to Dean before walking back over to the table. 

A few minutes later, Sam’s phone started to ring. Dean watched his brother check the caller I.D. before heading outside. Sam shut the door behind him, but Dean could make out snippets of conversation. He craned his neck, trying to turn his ear towards the door.

“…More time.” Sam was saying. “Few hours… best I can. Of course, but… I’ll call you.”

When Sam walked into the room, Dean didn’t pretend that he hadn’t been listening. 

“Who was that?” He asked.

Sam looked at Dean strangely- was it sadness? Resignation? Frustration? Dean couldn’t tell. Sometimes he could read his brother perfectly, and sometimes it was more like a very hopeful game of darts, trying to figure out what was going on in Sammy’s head.

“Bobby.” Sam sighed, raking his long fingers through his hair.

“What did he want?” Dean asked, sitting up. The room swayed a little, but it didn’t pitch under him like it had earlier that morning. This change was decidedly an improvement. To celebrate, Dean took a long pull from the glass of water. 

“Some hunters disappeared in Jersey, he wants us to check it out.” Sam said. “I told him we were still on a job, but he’s getting impatient. I guess he was hoping we’d head out that way last night, but it wasn’t possible.”

“Wait, I thought you just talked to him, how…” Dean began. Sam cut him off.

“He called last night, after the job. But neither of us was in any condition to go anywhere.”

“And you’re just mentioning it now?” Dean asked, shocked. “We could have been on the road hours ago!” Dean tried to quell the anger rising in his chest. He went to stand but another wave of nausea hit him, sending him stumbling to the floor. Sam rushed forward to catch Dean, and seemed hurt when his brother waved him off. 

“You needed to rest.” Sam said quietly. 

Dean opened his mouth to argue but then shut it again. When had Sam- his Sammy- begun to look at him with that expression? When had Sam begun to look after Dean? Was it with the return of his soul, or was it the recent absence of any significant looks from Sam at all that made this glance so poignant?

“I can rest in the car.” Dean said, reaching out for Sam to help him up. Relief flooded his brother’s face as he brought Dean to his feet and settled him onto the bed.“It’s a five hour drive to Jersey at least.”

“No, Dean.” Sam said. “We’re not leaving until tomorrow morning. Now drink your water.”

Dean wanted to argue, or at least bitch a little more, but between the look on his brother’s face and the storm in his head and stomach, he decided against it. As Sam settled onto the bed next to him and picked up the TV remote, Dean decided that maybe Sammy needed the break just as much as Dean supposedly did. That, at least, was excusable. 

There wasn’t much that Dean could do that night besides hydrate and pick at his cooling burger. Instead of fighting it, Dean decided to eat and drink and at least look as if he were resting. It had become abundantly clear that the only way to get Sam to stop fretting over him would be if Sam believed that Dean was feeling well enough to take care of himself. Which Dean certainly wasn’t, but the dark bruises underneath Sam’s eyes had become his motivation. 

When Sam did finally decide that he could go to sleep, he carefully laid in the bed next to Dean. Of course, Sam first put as much space in between them as possible, his back flush against the wood paneled walls when he finally settled in. 

If either of the Winchesters were honest with themselves, they would have had to admit that the close proximity of their brother, even when they were both so utterly vulnerable, was more of a comfort than the weapon concealed by both of their pillows and the lines of salt under each of the windows.


	4. Chapter 4

“I checked the local papers and it seems like there was a surge of deaths in Paterson a little over a week ago.” Sam said as they passed the exit for Kingston, New York. They had another hour and a half until they hit Paterson. “These hunters Gresson and Wright went out to check it out.”

“Are they friends of Bobby’s or something?” Dean asked. His forehead (the un-marred side of it, anyway) was pressed against the window. “How does he know about the case?”

“Apparently they swung by Bobby’s on their way from Seattle; they wanted to see if anything was on Bobby’s radar.” Sam said. “They took off pretty quick by the sounds of it, but called again when they hit Pennsylvania.”

“What’s Bobby, their keeper?” Dean asked.

“I dunno, Dean, I didn’t inquire into their life story when Bobby called.” Sam said, mildly irritated. He tapped out the rhythm of one of Dean’s favorite songs into the steering wheel, more out of subconscious habit than actual affection for the song. He had seen Dean do the same for most of his teenage years. 

“Whatever, dude. We don’t even check in with Bobby that much…” And he’s practically a dad to us. Sam didn’t have to hear the latter part of the sentence to know what his brother was thinking. But the truth was, they hadn’t been to Bobby’s in awhile. Not since Sam had gotten his soul back. 

“Well they either grew a sense of independence between Pennsylvania and New Jersey or something went way wrong. Bobby hacked the system and says that Gresson’s credit card showed a transaction in a town about five minutes from Paterson, but that there’s been nothing since and they stopped answering their phones.”

Dean just grunted in response and shifted in his seat. Sam had a feeling that the constant motion of the car wasn’t meshing well with Dean’s nausea. He had been trying to drive as smoothly as possible (admittedly both for Dean’s health and for his affection for the car). When Sam glanced over at his brother, his brow knit with worry. Dean still looked pale, and a light sheen of sweat was breaking over his forehead. Sam decided to stop for lunch the next time they passed a rest stop.

“Anyway, I checked local papers and found something interesting.” Sam said, trying to engage his brother. 

“A coupon for a lipstick that’s your perfect color?” Dean’s voice was barely more than a grumble. 

“Yeah, and an eye shadow to match.” Sam rolled his eyes and pulled his lips tight, trying to hide the smile that would reveal how thrilled he was that Dean had the energy to insult him. 

“What did you find?” Dean asked. 

“Nothing.” Sam said, taking his attention away from their conversation for just a second to pass through a toll. 

“…Right. Real helpful Sammy.” Dean sighed and reached for the cola he had propped up next to him to take a swig.

“No, Dean, I mean like I couldn’t find any news about Paterson. There’s nothing after the initial reports of some illness that was hiking up the death toll. It’s like the newspapers stopped printing, or something. So then I checked papers for towns nearby, and most of them stopped publishing so much as a weather update few days later. There was a short piece about hospital crowding in Clifton three days ago, but otherwise it’s basically radio silence for that whole area for almost a week now.”

“Did you check the PD radios? Maybe they’ve got the area in quarantine.” Dean suggested.

“Nothing from the Police. Or the National Guard, I checked them too. It’s weird, it’s almost like the area has fallen straight off of the map.”

“And so these two hunters-“

“George Gresson and Alex Wright.” Sam supplied.

“Whatever.” Dean said. “So these guys go in to an area with a disease infestation, disappear, and then no one hears anything from anyone after that?”

“Seems like it.” Sam said.

“Awesome.” Dean muttered. “How long until we get there?”

“Another hour, maybe a little more.” 

“Great. Wake me when we get there, yeah Sammy?” Dean asked, curling up against the window once more.

“Sure thing, man.” Sam replied, wishing that he could let Dean sleep in a motel bed somewhere, instead of dragging him into the fray of yet another supernatural battle with an unknown outcome. Sure, Sam knew that their lifestyle didn’t exactly come with sick leave, but just once he wished that he could just care for Dean the way that Dean not only needed, but deserved. Some weights were too heavy for one set of shoulders to bear, and while the Winchester brothers had each other, Sam knew that some loads were too big for both of them combined. The last year, between losing everything and then gaining it back again, only to find out that yet another battle was coming down the pipeline, had been exhausting. Neither Sam or Dean had really had a chance to rest, or stop, or heal from any wounds they had incurred. 

___

Dean woke up as Sam made a particularly sharp right-hand turn. When Dean glanced over at his brother, his face awash in annoyance, Sam only gave a half-apologetic smile. The pounding in Dean’s head had lessened substantially, but was still ever-present. All that he wanted was to get out of the car and stretch his legs, or at the very least be the one behind the wheel. 

“Where are we?” Dean looked out of his window and saw tall, brick buildings all around them, covered in colorful signs written in Spanish. Outside of a few sporadic Spanish classes in high school, Dean never learned the language. But Sam had his eyes cast around the street, and the occasional squint told Dean that his brother understood the signs just fine.

“Supermarkets, convenience stores, clothing…” Sam rattled off the list as they drove past. “It’s two o’clock on a Tuesday and everything is closed.”

“Pull over.” Dean said. Enough of his mental fog had cleared away that he had finally noticed that there was a person laying face down on the ground just down the street. Sam, whose eyes had been mostly cast upwards for the last few blocks (the streets being completely deserted), caught the same sight that Dean had and swerved to the side of the road. 

Dean got out of the car and walked stiff-legged over to the person- a man- crumpled on the sidewalk.

“Hey, you okay man?” Dean asked, leaning over him. The smell of decay filled his nostrils. He backed away.

“Shit.” He said, looking back at Sam, who was just getting out of the car. “It’s a corpse.”

“Lying in the middle of the sidewalk?” Sam asked, brows furrowing.

“Well he ain’t sleeping.” Dean replied. He noticed that the hand of the man was already rotting away. He had been here for a little while. 

That’s when Dean noticed that across the street, there was the body of a woman crumpled on a stoop, and just a few feet from her there was another body slouched up against the wall of a building. 

“Get in the car.” Dean said, rushing to the Impala. He slammed his door shut but didn’t relax until Sam was in the seat next to him. Sam started up the car and began to drive again. As they pulled back onto the road and continued down the street in silence, the body count outside grew. Men in their 20s, teenagers, elderly women, kids… there didn’t seem to be any selectivity to the body count.

“What the hell happened here?” Sam wondered out loud. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. 

“They’re all dead, and have been for a few days at least.” Dean said, unsure if he wanted to look out his window for evidence or avoid it in the interest of holding down his breakfast. Absently, he itched at the gash on his arm. 

Up ahead, the road stopped at a T-intersection. To the left was a steep hill, and to the right was a tight curve. Sam picked the hill, and they found themselves in a small neighborhood filled with minuscule houses. Here, there were fewer bodies on the streets, but every home had the doors shut and the curtains drawn. 

“There’s a hospital up ahead.” Dean said suddenly, pointing at a road sign. “We should go check it out. Maybe the staff can clarify things a bit.” 

They went another half mile down the road and then stopped. The parking lot of the hospital was so full that cars lined every inch of it, including crosswalks and ambulance lanes. Occasionally, a car door was left open. Somewhere in the distance a car alarm was ringing out, unchecked. The entire hospital was dark, and only dead bodies littered the ground outside. 

There was not a living soul in sight. 

“What in the fuck is going on here?” Dean said, automatically reaching for his door handle. He was so distracted that he didn’t hear the flapping of wings from the back seat, so when he and Sam were suddenly standing in the middle of a small kitchen, it came as a shock to him.


	5. Chapter 5

“You cannot go outside.” 

“Cas! What the hell?” Dean asked, looking around the tiny gray kitchen in confusion. A small, choked gasp lodged in his throat as he grabbed Castiel around the shoulders and shook him lightly. “You’ve been gone for fucking weeks. Where in the hell have you been?”

“There’s no time.” Cas said, stepping back from Dean. “It is too dangerous out there right now. You should not have come here.” 

“Where are we?” Dean demanded, taking a second, more menacing step towards Castiel. Sam put up a hand to stop his brother, knowing the guilt that his brother always wrestled with after he and Cas went at it. 

“You’re in a house in Paterson, New Jersey.” Cas answered. “The couple that once lived here are dead in a hospital parking lot, and they won’t need it anymore.”

Dean took a quick look around. The kitchen they were standing in was clean, but small. The linoleum was old and cracked where it met the cabinetry, which was thickly painted in a high-gloss white paint. The refrigerator, sink, and oven were all spaced along the same wall. A smallish round wooden table and three chairs were pushed up against the wall opposite of the cabinets. Two windows were just above the table, and there was a door to the outside along the third, far wall. In the fourth wall was a large doorway that led into a second, equally small room with a gray carpet and an ugly, plaid couch. 

“And you brought us here why, exactly?” Dean asked, turning himself to see the entirety of the room.

“Because if you had gone into the hospital, you may have been attacked. It’s past the seventh day.” Castiel said cryptically. As he spoke, the angel leaned over to peer out of the windows, his lips set in a grim line. 

“Oh good, I’m glad that’s cleared up.” Dean said, tossing his hands upwards into the air with a wince before he looked to Sam. Sam stepped forward.

“Do you know what’s going on here, Cas?” Sam asked, putting a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. 

“Someone set loose a very, very dangerous, very contagious disease.” The angel explained, turning back to the brothers. “It’s an airborne virus, and it kills everyone who is infected with it.” 

“But if it’s airborne, then we’ve already been exposed.” Sam said, his voice quiet. 

“You- both of you- are immune to this virus.” Castiel said. “Vessels are not susceptible to demonic plagues.”

“Well, at least being the bitch-suit for Michael finally paid off.” Dean muttered under his breath. Sam shot him a look, and then ran his hands through his hair.

“If we can’t get the virus, how are we in danger?” Sam asked, desperate for information.

Castiel sighed, clearly unhappy about having to break down his concern for the Winchesters. “The virus doesn’t just kill you. It festers and breeds inside your body until it’s able to control you. It’s the perfect virus. It spreads like wildfire among the living and then once they’re dead, they re-animate to take down whoever is left.” Cas said, “The re-animation seems to take about seven days. The first batch of infected are already wandering, and the rest will follow in short order.”

“I don’t...” Sam began.

“If you’re bitten by one of the re-animated victims, you can still catch the virus,” Castiel explained. An edge of impatience had crept into his voice, “and these creatures can sense the uninfected. They thirst for them.”

“Let me get this straight.” Dean said. He walked over next to Cas and glanced through the curtains to the empty street outside. “Sam and I basically just drove into a zombie outbreak? And it’s airborne?” Dean’s voice lifted towards the end, startling Sam and causing the corners of Castiel’s eyes to tighten. 

“Yes, you are correct.” Castiel replied. 

“So how do we stop it?” Sam asked, desperate.

“You can’t worry about that now. You need to concentrate on surviving.” Castiel said.

“Well then let us get back in the Imapala and get the hell outta Dodge!” Dean said, throwing his arms into the air. He winced as the gash on his bicep was pulled tight. 

“And go where?” Castiel asked, his voice angry. “It’s an airborne virus. It will infect the rest of the state in less than a week, and the east coast in two. Half of the population will go down in the first batch of infections and the other half will die just as the first half starts to re-animate. In the next six months, the entire population of the country will drop to the rare few who are immune to the disease.” 

“So then what do we do?” Sam asked. “Sit here for six months? What the hell good is that going to do for anyone?”

“Yes, you wait here for now.” Cas said. “Some of the angels are looking into the cause of the virus, and once we have the cause we may have the cure. Or at the very least, something to prevent whoever is left from catching the virus.”

“So you just want us to sit here?” Dean asked.

“Yes.” Castiel answered. “Once I find out what has caused this, I will need your help.”

“And why do we need to be here for that?” Dean asked.

“Because this is the origin of the virus.” Castiel explained. “The population is already decimated, there’s no one left. As long as you stay away from the Infected, you should be relatively safe.”

“Cas, that is the most ridiculous logic I’ve ever heard.” Dean said tiredly. 

“This wasn’t a naturally occurring viral infection, Dean. Something released this. Something big, nasty, and with a plan. We’ve been searching for days, and we’ve found nothing. Which means whoever is doing this is out of our sights right now.” Cas said. “If the virus isn’t natural, then we have no way of knowing what will happen when it hits larger expanses of the population. We only know for sure what’s happened here, and it’s been decided that this is the safest place for you to be.”

“Like the Swine Flu.” Sam said suddenly.

“What?” Dean asked, turning to his brother.

“The Swine Flu outbreak. The first group of infected died by the dozens, and everyone thought that it was a part of the virus. But it turned out that it had just blended with another virus in a certain area, and that’s why people where dying.” Sam explained. 

“Exactly.” Castiel said. “We’ve determined that the outbreak here, while dangerous, is survivable if you’re immune to the initial virus. We do not know if that will change as the virus spreads. We need to figure out what caused this, and more importantly, who. Then it may be easier to determine what we are dealing with.”

“Well then let us find whoever they are!” Dean said, his voice rising.

“No. I will not take that risk. Not until we know exactly what we’re dealing with. Stay here. I will come back for you.” Cas said.

“When?” Dean asked.

“Give me a week.” He answered. “I’m already following a lead.” And then he was gone.

“Damnit, Cas!” Dean swore and slammed his fist into the wall next to him. Sam jumped at the noise, but didn’t say anything. 

Together, Sam and Dean explored the small house that Castiel had thrown them into. Dean noticed that the house was festooned in photographs of a dark-haired couple that looked happier than any of the half-dozen Winchester photographs ever did. He assumed that it came with the territory of “normality” but then again, he was the one standing in a house immune to a zombie outbreak that had taken down an entire zip code. 

“Nice couple.” Sam said, picking up the framed photograph that Dean had been looking it. It was a picture of the husband and wife on a fishing trip- a small fish dangling from a line between them as the laughed. 

“Not anymore.” Dean mumbled, and Sam returned the frame to the table where he found it. 

Eventually, after the quick tour of the house (one bedroom, bathroom, eat-in kitchen, living room, standard home fare), the brothers noticed that the Impala had appeared high up in the driveway outside, only a few feet from the kitchen door. They were relieved to see that Castiel had thrown them into a house surrounded by a 5-foot chain link fence with gates that closed over the driveway and walkway leading up to the house. Sam went out to grab what he could from their stocks of survival gear and weapons while Dean began to go through the closets and the cabinets in the house, emptying containers and spreading various items over the kitchen table. Sam watched as piles of rags, bandages, ointments and alcohol (rubbing, not drinking) were piled up. Then, Dean turned towards the kitchen cabinets and began to rifle through.

“So if Castiel is right about the virus being airborne, then we need food, water, and ways to sanitize everything.” Dean said as he counted out cans of beans and vegetables on the table. “What are the odds that this family has a camp stove and some propane lying around?”

“There’s a basement door outside, I noticed it when I was grabbing our stuff.” Sam said. “If it’d be anywhere, down there would be my bet.”

“We can’t drink the tap water. The water supply may be infected. And we shouldn’t eat anything processed locally, just in case.” Dean was checking the manufacturing labels on the canned goods as he spoke to Sam. 

“Here.” Sam had reached on top of the refrigerator and lifted down a case of water bottles. Only a handful had been removed. He counted out twenty-four remaining bottles, and placed them on the table. Dean looked up at him, suddenly struck by the realization that he and his brother were calmly preparing for a potential undead onslaught, and the panic had not set in yet. 

“You know what we need, Sammy?” Dean asked as he turned his attention from the supplies on the table to the kitchen windows, making sure that they were all shut and locked. Next he would have to start finding supplies to plaster the windows up. If Castiel was right, and the Infected would hunt the living, then Dean wanted the evidence of their habitation to be as minimal as possible.

“Friends who don’t send us into zombie apocalypses or barricade us into unknown locations and then disappear?” Sam murmured as he checked the ammo on a shotgun. 

“Well, that. And a damn vacation.” Dean said. 

Sam chuckled, and put the gun down on the table. He looked up at his brother, and realized that despite the horrifying reality of the world outside and all of the things that could (or could not) be coming his way over the next few days (or weeks, or months...), he still felt safe. Because he was with Dean, and there wasn’t any other person that he would rather trust with his life.


	6. Chapter 6

It was the sound of a dog howling that woke Sam up on the first morning after Cas left. He was laying on the sofa in the living room, awkwardly curled after a half hour of trying to find a position that allowed the entire length of his legs to fit comfortably on the couch with the rest of his body. He had given up, and finally drifted off- the hand with the burn lifted to rest on his opposite shoulder, where it pulsed and ached painfully.

Sam got up and walked over to one of the windows in the living room that looked out over the street. Dean had spent awhile sealing them off with duct tape and cardboard while Sam figured out a way to cut slivers of the boards away so that they could see any activity going on outside. It wasn’t a perfect system, but hiding from monsters wasn’t either Winchester’s forte. Usually they were out hunting them.

Outside on the street, something was moving. It was slow, and without intention, but on a quiet street without a single other movement save for the wind in the trees, it was menacing all the same. There was a lone streetlight on this part of the block, just past the waist-high chain link fence that surrounded the perimeter of the house. Sam waited for the shuffling shape to move beneath its glare, but it never did. 

However, as the dog’s howling continued over the next hour, Sam noticed that the number of shapes outside had quickly grown.

“Dean.” Sam walked into the bedroom, which had become Dean’s room after a lost hand in poker. There was a flutter in Sam’s gut when he saw the shirt hiked up over his brother’s navel, and Sam tried desperately to move his eyes away from Dean’s muscular thighs as he walked over to the bedside to shake him awake.

“Whats’it Sammy?” Dean mumbled. His voice was foggy with sleep. It tore at Sam’s heart, realizing that Dean had only gotten one real night’s sleep since the Wendigo. 

“There’s a neighborhood dog that’s attracting too much attention.” Sam mumbled.

Dean groaned and rolled over. He was running his hands through his hair as he sat up and tried to shake the sleep away. A grimace pulled at his lips and around his eyes as he leaned forward, no doubt agitating the gashes underneath his shirt. 

“What kind of attention?” Dean asked through the palms of his hands.

“Something’s moving out front.” Sam replied.

“Okay.” Dean smacked his hands against his thighs and stood up, pulling his jeans from the end of the bed and walking out into the kitchen where their shotguns and pistols laid on the table.

“The dog is in the house next door.” Sam told his brother. Dean picked up his pistol and tucked it into the back of his waistband. Sam grabbed his own gun and they both went over to the windows to peer out into the darkness.

There were at least three distinct shadows moving around in front of the house, and more were flickering under streetlights down the block.

“Are we sure it’s the noise that’s drawing them here?” Dean whispered.

“Dude, I’m not really sure of anything right now.” Sam said, running his uninjured hand through his hair.

Together they decided that their best course of action would be to crawl out of the bedroom window and through the side yards between the two houses. Dean insisted on going first, because he was older, and Sam let him purely because he intended on watching Dean’s back.

Sam’s boots landed softly on the grass below the bedroom window. He could see Dean’s outline in the shadows in front of him. He was peering around the chain link fence that separated the two yards. When Sam followed his brother’s gaze, he noticed that the house next door did not have a fence around the front and side yard. There was only a long dog run that enclosed a small length of yard near the side of the house. 

There was movement close to the front walkway. Sam’s stomach dropped when he saw shambling, human-shaped figures illuminated in the solar lights that lined the path that led to the front door.

“Infected.” Dean cast a glance to where Sam was pointing and ducked low behind the fence. Slowly they both crawled deeper into the back yard, which had a thin smattering of bushes and weeds that they could use to conceal themselves. They could hear the dog’s howling continue, increasingly ragged in pitch but otherwise unwavering.

“Okay, you stay here.” Dean said, turning to Sam. Sam instantly began to protest until Dean continued.

“I’m going to make too much noise breaking into the house. I need you to stay here and aim a good shot at anything that comes down this alley. I shouldn’t be more than five, ten minutes. If I run into trouble, I’ll let out three shots, and then you can come running.”

“Make it two.” Sam said, thinking about how little ammo they had now that they were faced with a potentially endless apocalypse. 

Dean gave a curt nod jumped over the fence with a heart-wrenching rattle. Sam watched as he rushed to a door at the side of the house and smashed in the window with the butt of his gun. Dean reached into the darkness on the other wise of the window and must have turned the knob from the inside, because within the seconds the door swung open with a short squeak. The dog’s howling stopped briefly, and quickly became a deep barking.

The noise was just loud enough to draw the attention of the Infected on the street. Sam watched anxiously as they began to amble up the side of the house. But before they had gotten within ten feet of the building Dean had already disappeared into the house.

_____

Dean closed the door behind him and pulled a flashlight from his pocket. He held it even with the handle of his gun. It appeared that he was standing on a small landing with a staircase that led upwards and another that led into a basement. The passage smelled like mildew, and the wood groaned in protest under Dean’s feet.

He ascended the stairs, sweeping his light to each side of the doorway when he reached the top. Dean was trying to keep the beam of light aimed low, towards the floor, but ultimately there wasn’t anything that he could do about the burst of light that now illuminated the small kitchen of the house.   
It was odd that the dog had not appeared yet. The cabinets in the room stood open and the counters were piled high with clothes and random objects, but no one was in sight. He could hear the whining of the animal upstairs, and a something that could be pacing but Dean wasn’t sure. He moved forward into the house, listening to the barking grow louder as he approached a small hallway set off through a dining room littered with children’s toys. 

That was when Dean smelled the corpse. It lay on its back on the stairs that rose to a second floor from the end of the hallway. His (because as far as Dean could tell, that was what it used to be) head was three steps up from the bottom, and his feet stretched above him awkwardly for about five stairs. Immediately, Dean knew that this was more than just a body. For one, there was blood splattered down the front of the corpse’s shirt and across its graying fingers. For another, there was a deep gash in its throat. Dean looked at the glassy, dead eyes of the corpse, and noticed that its open mouth revealed a set of broken but pointed teeth and a tongue that was nearly purple.

“Pointy teeth. Awesome.” Dean muttered lowly to himself. He stepped cautiously over the corpse, praying that it was truly dead, and ascended the stairs. 

At the top of the staircase was a wooden door. Dean quickly realized that there was not a single part of him that wanted to know what was on the other side of it. He was tempted to just turn around, grab Sammy, and get the hell away from the whole mess. But then, the howling on the other side of the door grew so loud that Dean knew that the door was the only thing separating him from the animal on the other side. 

Dean mounted the last of the stairs and hesitated before kicking the door open with a deafening crash. He then backed down the stairs quickly, pistol aimed at the darkness behind the doorway.

For the most part, Dean’s plan worked. The suddenness of breaking down the door gave him the jump over the dog on the other side, which allowed him for enough time to make it back down the stairs. What Dean was not expecting, however, was the pitiful whimpers of the mangled, limping animal that came to the top of the stairs to meet him.

“Fuck.” Dean muttered, running his hands through his dark hair. It was abundantly clear that the dog couldn’t even make it down the stairs, let alone rip off his face in rabid hostility


End file.
